


In the night, there is a vacancy

by ofcollapsesandfinales



Category: John Wick (Movies)
Genre: Age Difference, Depression, F/M, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Obsessive Behavior, Older Man/Younger Woman, Past Brainwashing, Possessive Behavior, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychosis, Romance, Slow Burn, Suicidal Thoughts, Touch-Starved, Trauma, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-13
Updated: 2019-06-21
Packaged: 2020-05-02 10:30:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19197007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ofcollapsesandfinales/pseuds/ofcollapsesandfinales
Summary: The desert is relentless and vast. It is there that John goes to plead fealty. It is there that he encounters the living consequence of the High Table’s devotion to cultivating fealty.





	1. Chapter 1

The desert, relentless and vast, stretches out on all sides. A small caravan marches forth with a man slung haphazardly across one of the exhausted camels. Intricate tapestries drift in the scorching breeze, giving way to a curved throne. Winged sleeves of carefully embroidered azure and cerulean swirl as a figure turns. 

 

* * *

 

John awakes to the taste of blood and sand. The path to punishment was written in the stars. With no water and an aching body, he'd followed Canis Minor until movement gave way to exhaustion. Dehydration had gifted him with a hallucination of Helen's pleading voice. It's the closest he will get to ever seeing her again. Even if there is an afterlife, Helen would be in an entirely different place. Creatures of the night can never escape the darkness. He knows that now.

A shadowed figure ends any rumination. John rises from the sand to meet the gaze of deep-set brown. The rest of the woman's face is covered in a mask of azure cloth adorned with gold discs. A placid murmur slips past the clattering of the jewelry. "The Elder will see you in a moment. May you serve well."

Everything is a haze until John is dragged in front of the Elder. Adorned in azure cloth, the woman sits at the foot of the throne with downcast eyes and a motionless form. Even so, John can see the hints of wariness inherent to anyone involved with the High Table. Delicate patterns and intricate jewelry are intended as a beautiful distraction from what must be a number of weapons. 

It's odd being at a distinct disadvantage. On a theoretical level, there is not much that can be done with sand and cloth when surrounded by people with guns. There is nothing to do but listen and plead. 

John had been adrift from the moment Helen collapsed on that night. Helen died of natural causes and there was no one to punish but the senseless world. So, when that final symbol of hope died in a beaten and bloodied heap, violence was the natural answer. It had become his anchor. 

In that restaurant all those years ago, Helen burned like the sun and smiled with the secret promise of humanity. The offer of a new life fell from her lips as though a dead man could simply walk away to exist amongst the living. For this new life, he spent a night soaked in blood and made a pact with a vindictive prince of hell. It was too perfect. A restaurant was too cliche and the illness was always lurking.

His rage had never disappeared. It was merely subdued by adoration then grief until that boy came swaggering into the house once shared with the sun. That boy. That ingrate had killed Daisy, the final gift. Only a bloody chain remained. Violence was the only response. After all, instinct is all that remains when everything else is destroyed. Every repercussion could be traced to that instinctive destruction of the boy. Marcus paid the price and the demon prince came calling. 

Now, the consequences of the past reddened weeks had arrived. To live in memoriam of Helen, he needed to execute an old friend. Everything else—the removal of the finger and offering of the ring—was just a show of strength by the Elder. (John imagines placing two bullets through the man's head. An efficient method and assured death.)

As John stands to leave, the Elder calls out. “Canis will help you prepare for the journey and accompany you to New York.”

In a flurry of cloth, the woman stands to bow and address the Elder. “I have served. I will be of service.”

The woman is not a person to John. At least, not at first. He is distantly familiar with her position from the times Winston had waxed poetic while complaining about the High Table. The Hound is one trained from birth by the High Table to live, kill, and die in service. To hold the title of Canis, one must be willing to give everything and do anything for the High Table.

The Hound is silent and blank in every sense of the word. It slips into the back room and motions to the bath before disappearing into the tapestries. John distantly wonders if the scalding water is intended to burn away any remnants of humanity and leave only the reaper. A horror born of blood. In the back of John’s mind, something grins. The Baba Yaga is what the High Table wants. The Baba Yaga is what dons the black suit. Another creature bound in service. 

At the sight of what he was to become, Helen would weep.

 

* * *

 

Canis knows what is to come.

There had been murmurs that the Baba Yaga was coming to pledge loyalty. Of course, such chatter ended whenever she slipped into the room. The young ones act as though she is liable to execute those who don't engage in solemn worship of the Elder. Such senseless violence brings her no pleasure, but if the Elder demands payment in flesh then a death must occur. She remembers seeing the previous hound slowly saw the head of a boy whose errors had reduced an assassination into chaos. The blood had spurted across Canis' face, but she couldn't move. The Elder had commanded the young ones watch. Errors were not to be tolerated.

There is a small part of her—traitorous and wretched—that is grateful for not having to kill any of those in training. The gratefulness is sickening.  _If an order is given, it must be followed. It is not the place of a hound to question._ Her existence is that of an instrument for the High Table to use until no longer needed. 

Confirmation arrives in the form of a messenger during a training session overseen by Canis. The man, still too young to fully understand the life he’d entered, pauses to watch the bloodied creatures dance. One boy has a level of controlled brutality that could be valuable in the future. One day, the boy may even slit her throat and take on the role of Hound. Such is the cycle. When the opposing child pulls out a crudely formed knife, Canis knows better than to intervene. The rising bile remains in her mouth. Swallowing the burning liquid would betray discomfort at what the Elder considered natural. 

When the formerly impassive boy casts a pleading glance, Canis motions forward the messenger with the rapid snapping of her fingers. She stands and ends the training before exiting in silence. The children's eyes are vacant. 

It takes her a moment, but she manages to catch the young boy alone as he dresses old wounds. Her voice is faint, weakened from months of silence. “Fortune favors the strong. Survival favors the wary.”

The boy’s eyes flash with determination and misplaced affection. The latter is punishable under the Elder’s rules for those in training. Canis leaves in a flutter of azure cloth. To survive, he will learn to hide from himself and the world as time passes. The boy will learn or die. She can do no more for him.

The light of the sun briefly blinds her as she approaches the prone form of the Baba Yaga.  _A creature from hell born of violence._ That is what she had been told as a child. Yet there he lay on the ground, brought low by the Hight Table. Canis' sight blurs as the image of a fluttering red cloth appears for the briefest of moments. She swallows and takes in a shallow breath. There can be no hint that she is unable to forget. It is not allowed. 

Canis locks herself into place, betraying nothing to the waking Baba Yaga. The murmured words are meant only as advice to keep the man from angering the Elder. Nothing good ever came of the Elder’s rage. Canis knows that from experience. 

When the man is thrown onto the floor, Canis is seated at the Elder’s feet with her eyes downcast in a show of subservience. He could bludgeon her head and she would not move a muscle.  _The Elder stands above all and will do as needed._ This is the mantra Canis repeats to herself as the tips of her fingers go cold at the thought of what the Elder might do if irked. She knows fighting would be sordid. 

A lifetime of service safeguarded against the development of any loyalties or experiences beyond those sanctioned by the High Table. _A hound lives only to serve, reared by and bound to the High Table._  Canis, having lived strictly by the rules, is entranced by the Baba Yaga’s desire to live in memoriam.

The mere idea of acting against the High Table for another, much less a dead one, is entirely foreign to her.  _Of course, a creature would never understand such an act. The Baba Yaga knows of something more. I was born into service and will die in chains._

The Elder masks his rage at the disobedience of the Baba Yaga with amusement and sadistically orders fealty through bloodshed. The Baba Yaga seethes and Canis manages to briefly imagine killing the man who’d dictated the course of her life for so long before snapping back to the reality of her existence. _I am nobody without the Elder and a hound while in service. I have served and will serve again._

_A hound only knows fealty._

In the recesses of her mind, a red cloth dances in the wind.


	2. Chapter 2

It's a struggle to not feel some semblance of pleasure from being allowed to leave the desert. After all, Canis had been born there and would return in death. All hounds return to the place of their birth to know freedom for the first time. Adnan said so. At this point, every moment spent there was just prolonging the inevitable.

The encampment, ever moving, was an odd place. The more Canis grew, the less aware she became in that unending wasteland. She had struggled to tell time there as a child. It disappeared away into a haze of heat, blood, and cold. Keeping track was only a reminder of the years to come. The days and nights blurred together. There were no seasons. Only training and paralyzing sleep. An unbroken stream of unmarked time.

Without any personal belongings, packing is a quick and simple affair. The visit with the Elder that follows is brief but seems to last forever. Her role is simple. Follow the Baba Yaga. Report any concerns. Execute him should any hint of disloyalty emerge. The Elder waves her away, eyes distant and indifferent. The Baba Yaga is likely to kill her and the Elder knows that.  

There are moments when the Elder speaks and Canis wants to scream until the lining of her throat is ruined. A horrible whisper, quiet and dark, whispers of stained sand. The voices that longed for her eyes to have stayed shut in that time. Because when she opened them, a vast emptiness awaited. 

Clio is silent on the jarring ride out of the desert. The two men upfront are listening. Someone is always listening. Someone is always watching.  

 

* * *

 

The Hound is odd, even for those that generally served under the Table. It exists without a hint of past or personality. There is no playful intensity akin to that of Ares or seething anger akin to that of Cassian. When the car almost flips over and the drivers give a worried cry, the creature remains impassive. John doesn't even want the Hound to speak but the stillness soon becomes grating. Those deep-set eyes constantly follow him, watching and calculating.

Silence stretches between them for hours. 

The men leave without a word, actively avoiding any eye contact with the Hound. As the plane takes off, the Hound immediately begins to scour the space and tears out a number of wires. It turns to give John a curt nod before settling in beside a black leather bag. 

A hushed but assured voice breaks the silence. "The Elder has ordered me to ensure that you make it to the Continental."

 "And have you been ordered to ensure that the task is done?"

There is the barest hint of resignation in the response. "Of course." 

John nods and begins to evaluate the person before him. The Hound is small and young. Not a child as had been rumored, but a woman in her twenties. Each movement is measured and efficient. There are hints of a trained gracefulness in the willowy limbs. It reminded him of the hollow girls in the Ruska Roma.

The memory is distant. It came from a time before Helen where nights blurred into a symphony of cracking bones and sounding shots. The Director, in a pleased mood from a near flawless ballet performance, had opined that a child sent by the High Table was remarkably talented and devoid of any resistance. This must be the child. 

"Your name? Canis is merely another word for Hound."

"One needs no name beyond the title of Canis. The Hound exists in service to the High Table and needs nothing more." 

Canis rises, silently going to the backroom for a period before returning with plates and food. John eats because he knows that the Elder will only want him dead once Winston lays cold. The woman remains still as though awaiting permission. Having never worked with a creature of the table, John is unfamiliar with all the rules that bind Canis. It's strange to see someone so entirely devoid of agency. 

"You may eat."

Following a hushed thank you, Canis quickly finishes a portion of the food before cleaning up. The question falls unbidden from his thoughts, "What did they do to you?"

Something dark flashes across her face for the briefest of moments before the blankness returns. The next words come as a mild surprise. "Ares always said that you were the best of our era."

Of course, the guardians and hounds were trained together. Such loyalty has to be bred and enforced to be so all-consuming. 

"She served well."

An odd bitterness seeps through. "And she died alone in a hall of shattered glass with only an empty reflection for company." Canis pauses and the lines that follow are clearly rehearsed. "I am not duty-bound to seek retribution nor will I do so for personal reasons. A guardian must protect their ward even at the cost of their own life. Such is the way."

John has no response to that. 

Sleep comes quickly, manifesting as a darkened wariness liable to be broken at the slightest hint of movement. John wakes to an odd panicked sound. The Hound is convulsing in the chair, fingernails tearing the skin and blood seeping forth. 

In a moment of what must be insanity, he reaches out to wake her. Dilated eyes fly open and the Hound immediately attacks. A feral being. On instinct, he knocks her to the ground and nearly manages to pull out a knife to finish the job. Canis' movements are rapid and animalistic in the level of brutality on display. With manic eyes, Canis looks like a creature from hell.

Her eyes are unseeing, trapped in some distant past that becomes reality in the night. For the first time, he sees something outside of indifference on the young woman’s face. There is only absolute terror of what is to come. Noticing the lack of focus as her body begins to hyperventilate, John lunges.

He traps both her arms and wraps a hand around her throat. Canis’ breathing is labored and her entire form shakes. His legs remain entangled with her, preventing any chance of escape. He manages to avoid yelling at the girl, anger at her behavior bleeding into a hiss. “Calm. Down. There is no need for this.”

Canis’ eyes are blank and each breath is a shallow gasp. Wherever she is in time, it is not a place that should be remembered. John holds on until her body relaxes and her breath eases. He knows that there will be bruises across her skin from this later. 

Canis breaks the silence that ensues in a desperately apologetic tone. “I apologize Baba Yaga. I failed to control myself. Such an act was inappropriate and I will be sure to tell the Elder of my failure. You…you can assure that I will be punished.”

He turns from the girl, reminded of the long nights of his youth when memories of the horrors that training wrought still tainted his dreams. Canis remains on the floor, awaiting permission to move. Her eyes are wide as though awaiting some hellish castigation.

He lets out an irritated sight before tossing the object aside and gruffly giving the order to sleep.

Canis gives a hesitant smile, seemingly delighted by the avoidance of punishment. 

John understands following orders, but the young woman takes it to an extreme. From the forced mysteriousness of the Elder to the twisted subservience of the Hound, everything about the Hight Table was exhausting.

New York is even more so. 

The first attack comes from a darkened corner of the subway. The Hound is the first to respond, narrowly avoiding being shot and placing two bullets through the skull of the assailant. A quick kick dislodges the gun from the next attacker's hand. Canis weaves around the knife strikes before leveraging the wrist to flip the assailant onto the ground. Repeated stabs bounce oft he man's hidden armor until a weak point is found. The neck is slit as a final measure and she quickly shoots the men fighting with John. 

Canis rises with bloodied hands before turning to follow John into the crowds of the subway.  


	3. Chapter 3

The shadows are moving. Canis, unsure of whether John understands this, slips off to reduce the number. Her eyes still on the visage of a man who fancied himself a match for the Baba Yaga. 

Canis wants nothing more than to slam that smirking face into the ground until bone and flesh spill out into the sewers. This was the specter of her childhood. Once the Director taught them grace in suffering, those who lived were sent to learn silence. Only one suffocated creature returned. 

Zero had been everywhere and nowhere. With him, training never ended. The bald man found amusement in appearing from nothing to force the children into fighting sessions. One of the boys stopped sleeping from the paranoia that developed. Eventually, he put their training to use and quietly hung himself in the night. His body was left in the dumpster. Another orphan dead in the night. 

The development of a tremor in her right hand was unsurprising. The beating that followed forced the tremor into her right foot. Everything was too much. Every corner or darkened space was a possible source of pain. By the end, the paranoia became so constant that it became ingrained in her core. She didn't speak again for three years. When the news came that Zero was briefly excommunicated, Canis had grinned for the first time. 

A near hysterical laugh escapes her when the two men stop for the line of kindergartners. Zero makes a show of his students' "special training" before John puts an end to one of them. The laugh vanishes into a vicious grin at Zero's confusion when the Baba Yaga disappears. Carefully positioning herself in the crowd, Canis makes eye-contact with Zero. In sign-language, the only speech available to her trembling body for years after that nightmare, she tells him. 

"You will never match him."

A few passerby give her an odd look at a strangled laugh that escapes her escaping form. The Baba Yaga is be the most interesting person she has been ordered to follow. His every statement is declamatory, but his body moved with a balletic savagery. Every breath an effort born of exhausted years and lost dreams. His refusal to punish her for lashing out on the plan seemed an oddly kind gesture. The adjudicator would have taken flesh as payment.

As she is about to follow John, a text rings out from the phone provided by the Elder. The man must make it to the Continental on his own. Canis steps into the night. 

* * *

Everything about reaching the Continental had been exhausting. John placed his hands on the steps, asking fortune to once again have mercy. Charon, irritated by the violence brought to his hotel, bends the rules ever so slightly. The Hound waits in the lounge as though her charge had not been in another shootout. Her curated vacancy intensifies when the bald headed man enters the room soon after. 

Zero viciously leers at the Hound who looks on blankly as he viciously begins to comment. "All that training just to follow around an excommunicado like a dog." 

Canis' response is soft and holds the whisper of restrained violence. "A Hound exist to serve under the Table. As the Elder commands, the Hound executes."

Along the way to meet Winston, Canis disappears and leaves Zero to ignore the concept of personal space. The man expresses an admiration and an odd confidence. Charon puts an end to the endless chattering. 

Winston stands, the ever-knowing smile constant. 

* * *

Canis knows that John will fail to execute the target. The Elder would not have sent her otherwise. Attempting to kill the Baba Yaga is a risky proposition for Canis and a winning situation for the Elder. If she lives, a threat would be eliminated. If she dies, a better Hound will be named. Canis knows that the Elder finds her lacking. There is no joy in her violence. No pleasure. She had little entertainment value. 

The glass room, sterile and flawless, is surprisingly easy to hide within. 

It is there that Canis decides. 

The Adjudicator, her once sibling, calls for loyalty. All Canis can see is the bloodied cloth in the wind. The man whose bleeding form marked the beginning of her life. The man who had trained her with the kindest brutality she had ever known. 

Once, in a moment of what must have been poetic justice, Canis had been stabbed in the rain and stood there watching. There had been a desire to watch the blood stain the floor until nothing was left. Life had begun and would end in service. A razor to the throat meant nothing. Blood blood blood dripping on the floor from the vacant eyes and absent mind. 

The monotony of the desert had seemed endless. Curated violence and bruised forms. John had broken the endless stream. He had not beat her within a day of being given control. He had not whispered cruelties or murmured abuses. There had been no reaching hands or demented games. A Hound must serve, but the master can change.

Everything was in the gaze. The intensity. The rage. It was a rare day if his voice shifted away from resignation.

Looking up at the Adjudicator, there is nothing left to say. A shake of the head and lowered gun are all that mark the betrayal. The Adjudicator lets out a soft sigh as though to remark upon the rampant stupidity within the room. A call is made. A Hound is excommunicated and a Continental deconsecrated. 

A chance such as this only comes once. Those sanguinary dreams. Those silenced wants. Service to the Baba Yaga could make them real. For the head of the Elder, the price can be anything. For the head of Zero, the price can be anything. For the death of the D'Antonios and all that had been done in their house of madness, Canis will serve. Canis will bleed and bleed throughly for the Baba Yaga. He does not care for her existence and that does not matter. The Hound will serve. The Baba Yaga is a darkened pool. It lives in rage and death, but that is not a surprise. 

It is here that Canis binds their fates. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading. All comments are appreciated and taken into consideration.


End file.
